the after.

i still wake up and those numbered days of his with the key on my chain are on my brain.

i stop when i'm in the morning coffee pour & wonder if anyone can smell them; the prison letters that tell me where he sleeps.

when i'm driving my car and he looks at me, the one on the corner; does he see that i said the word that changed lettered name to numbers?

when she says the innocent word & it hits my ear & starts the steep slide, does she hear the anxiety that rings when she pulled the unknown trigger?

maybe when i go for my city park run after work, they can see the victim he saw in me & they'll start their plot too.

i think those might all just be whispers of the scars he left those ten months past. i hope they'll soon rest.

some say i'm writing a success story. the ones that see my feet, the ones that are still moving. the ones that leave the house that used to be glued to bed because the loss & the hate & the disbelief was too great. the feet that didn't get me away from him in time, those feet eventually learned to stand again, and they say it's something to be proud of.

odd to have normal normal job & normal apartment & normal routine to be a call for pride; someday i'll just be me & he won't be following me in my dreams & stalking me in my days & i'll blend in. i won't worry that his evil is staining my present & those i cross will notice my old wounds.

i'm more me but still he stays. i can't wait to finally shake him.